Pro-Obama Group Pushes Back on Health Insurance Industry

By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers

Just as the health insurance industry is reversing course and battling to kill President Obama's healthcare reform plan, a pro-Obama group is hitting back, claiming that the industry is scared of competition. Americans United for Change today begins running an ad on Washington cable stations charging that the industry, exempt from antitrust laws, is trying to fix the system by blocking the so-called public option being pushed by liberal Democrats. "The goal of the ad is to point out the complete uncompetitiveness of the current health insurance marketplace and to highlight the need for reform, in particular, a competitive public health insurance option," said Americans United for Change Communications Director Jeremy Funk. "It is not widely known that the insurance industry is exempt from the antitrust laws, which they exploit at every opportunity," he said. The ad can be seen on YouTube.

The script is below:

Script, "Real Competition"

How are professional baseball and insurance companies alike?

Baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust laws.

How are they different?

Insurance industry executives are scared of competition.

Baseball players aren't.

When baseball players fix the games, they get in trouble.

When health insurance executives fix the game, they get . . . rich.

Time for competition when it comes to health insurance . . . . We need the choice of a public health insurance plan.